IOHK Grothendieck Team Contributes to ETC Development

Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK) established the Grothendieck team in early 2017, dedicating resources to Ethereum Classic protocol development and research. Named after the mathematician Alexander Grothendieck, the team operated until its wind-down in 2020.

## Contributions

### Mantis Client
IOHK developed Mantis, a Scala-based Ethereum Classic client built on functional programming principles. Mantis demonstrated the feasibility of alternative client implementations with formal methods influence, though development concluded when IOHK shifted focus.

### Treasury Research
The Grothendieck team produced two treasury proposals for sustainable protocol funding:
- **ECIP-1051**: A protocol-level treasury system funded by a percentage of block rewards, modeled on research from IOHK's work on Cardano treasury mechanisms.
- **ECIP-1098**: A refined treasury proposal with a decentralized governance structure for fund allocation.

Both proposals were eventually withdrawn after community deliberation, but the research influenced subsequent treasury discussions in the ETC ecosystem, including the Olympia governance framework.

### Additional Research
The team contributed work in:
- Sidechain research and cross-chain interoperability
- Formal verification methods for smart contracts
- Protocol improvement proposals

## Legacy

IOHK's involvement brought academic rigor to ETC development during a formative period. The treasury research — while not adopted at the time — established the conceptual groundwork for protocol-level funding mechanisms. The Mantis client proved that a non-Go client could maintain ETC consensus, validating the multi-client approach the network continues to pursue.